More joy. More peace. More hope. More connection.

Safe to say we all want them. How do we get them? Building joy and peace in life, comfort in our own skin, being able to live according to our values is largely dependent on our habits of responding to ourselves, others, and situations. Read more

How Biofeedback can be helpful

A few years ago, I was in grad school beginning my career as a counselor. I was excited about making a difference in people’s lives. I was learning exciting new words and techniques to help people with their problems. And as a fellow human Read more

Escaping Our Shame

Many of us carry shame. Shame that represents our mistakes, family secrets, or identity. Sometimes we know exactly what we need to do to move forward in life and other times life feels like a constant struggle to keep our shame managed. Read more

Oh the love/hate relationship with technology. Mostly love and occasional moments of regret and longing for more out of life. It’s crazy that we can love and devote so much time to something that also leads us to feel emotions of regret, jealousy, dissatisfaction, and nothing. The moments of regret may come after binge watching an entire season in three days. Jealousy comes Read more

Look at the word responsibility— “response-ability”— the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling. -Stephen Covey

Reactivity is the willful ignorance of a problem. When that ignorance is confronted with the truth, a person Read more

https://lacamascounseling.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Reactive.jpg600900Dan Bates LMHChttps://lacamascounseling.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Lacamas-Logo.pngDan Bates LMHC2016-07-24 19:01:242016-07-28 07:25:42Learning to Be Proactive So You Don’t Have to Be Reactive

Challenges arise in life

Whether we seek them out intentionally or whether they come upon us without planning. Storms of school, work, relationship conflict, parenting, abuse, grief, moving, personal challenges, and life transitions.Read more

If you’re like me, communication can sometimes feel like a battlefield. Here’s how to get your point across without going to war!

This article was originally published on mum.info. You can find it here.

What if there was a way you could get your point across without raising the other person’s defenses?

Maybe this is a question that has only occurred to me, but I have a sneaking suspicion this is something most people wonder. Because, you know how it goes— you bring up something that’s really important to you and the other person dismisses your point or argues with you.

To borrow a warfare example from medieval times— imagine you are trying to get your troops across a drawbridge into the other person’s castle. And right as you’re about to storm across, the castle’s defenses are raised and the drawbridge is pulled up. And your troops go KERSPLATT into the moat!

https://lacamascounseling.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/talk-to-your-partner.jpg487730Dan Bates LMHChttps://lacamascounseling.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Lacamas-Logo.pngDan Bates LMHC2016-07-05 23:18:432016-07-05 23:22:46This Is How To Have A Conversation With Your Partner

Life offers a certain rhythm that we each find and adapt to. That rhythm becomes our glue that allows us to manage the challenges that each new day brings. The rhythm is our ability to know what to expect with each new day; this could be a highly predictable rhythm or one with more character.

Creating the person that we want to be can offer its challenges. There is empowerment and freedom, yet also a weight of responsibility in representing ourselves in our daily choices and actions. Identity is how we want to be known.

Identity is something that we discover about ourselves, something that people speak into our lives, and something that we speak about ourselves to others. Read more